| My father, Josiah Osborne Beard, was born April 29, 1847,
near Lewisburg in Greenbrier County, the son of Samuel Beard and Margaret Ann
(Knapp) Hutsonpillar; who had been widowed at the age of twenty before her
marriage to Samuel Beard. After the death of Josiah's parents, he was
raised by his grandparents John and Nancy McCintic Beard. With his
sky-blue eyes and curly black hair, Josiah was known in Greenbrier County as
Curly Joe. near the end of the Civil War when he was not quite
seventeen years old he joined Company D, 14th Virginia Cavalry at Lewisburg,
and he was wounded in the side at
Chancellorsville which serving under confederate
General McCausland.
October 6, 1869, he married Eveline Medora Yeager, who had been born June
18, 1852, a daughter of John and Margaret (Arbogast) Yeager. Eveline,
who was called Evie by her husband, had black eyes and hair and looked like
her mother. When Eveline was two years old, she was kidnapped, and when they discovered
she was missing, the family became alarmed because panthers were known to be in
the area, but they soon found her along the road to Traveler's Repose. She
had been playing in the road in front of her home when either the driver or a
passenger on a stagecoach asked her if she wanted to go for a ride, and she had
reached up and had been taken. Each of the men tried to blame the other,
and it was never determined which was responsible. When young Eveline was
asked what had happened her only reply was that she had been "ridin in a waggy".
As a young girl she watched the
Battle of
Allegheny from the family home, which was hit by a hail of bullets during
the fighting. She saw the Confederate flag fall once and be raised
again, then, during a lull in the action, Colonel Baldwin took the family to
his house away from the battlefield for safety. Eveline was
baptized, along with her younger brother Paul McNeill (Mack) in 1856 at a
camp meeting held at the old church that stood at the present Arbovale
cemetery. Their parents had ridden to the meeting in a wagon and
stayed for several days. Mack was still in dresses and had run out of clean
ones, so they borrowed one for him to wear for his baptism from Mrs. Sallie
Gum. before, and after the War mother attended school at the Green
Bank Academy and while there, she boarded at William Wooddell's.
Evenine's father died in 1861 and her mother in 1865. After her
mother's death she lived mostly with her sister, Mrs. Eliza Ann Yeager
Arbogast, wife of Adam Martin Van Buren Arbogast, on the Upper Tract, about
three miles from Travel's Repose, which is now called Bartow, having been
named
Barteau in honor of a Confederate soldier of French Ancestry. Evie
married Josiah Beard at her sister's home, and another sister, Frances
Elizabeth Yeager Kerr, along with Josiah's sister Sarah Beard Arbogast, held
a reception for them at Green Bank. Josiah and Evie first set up
housekeeping in April, 1870, at the Yeager family home place at the Top of
Allegheny, where they lived until 1871, when the moved to what is now
Winterburn, one mile above Thornwood. in the mid-1880's, they moved to
near the Bruffey Schoolhouse, northeast of Green Bank, so their children
could attend school there and at Green Bank. After a few years they
they bought a farm a couple of miles north of Green Bank, where they resided
the rest of their lives. Josiah Beard died January 28, 124 of old age,
and his wife died March 4, 1934 o heart trouble and old age. Both are
buried in the Arbovale cemetery. Josiah and Evie's first child, Blanche
Beatrice, was born at Top of the Allegheny, July 4, 1870, and died March 27,
1873 of appendicitis. Their second-born was a son named Irby
Rymer, who was born June 2, 1872 at Winterburn. He was married
April 18, 1900 to Cordie May Wooddell, and was killed June 22, 1936, by a
team of runaway horses. Leslie Osborne Beard was born at
Winterburn April 14, 1874. he was married June 2, 1897 to Rubie Mae
Ralston, and was killed in a tractor accident November 7, 1931. Twin
Daughters, Bertha McQuade and Bertie McHenry, were born at Winterburn
February 10, 1876. Bertha was still single when she died of diabetes
December 21, 1896. Bertie was married April 18, 1900, to George Lynn
Clark, and died of flu and pneumonia March 2, 1920. Arthur Joe was bon
at Winterburn July 13 1879, and was killed by lightning at Green Bank June
21, 1890. Ruby Evelyn was born Mary 19, 1881 at Winterburn, and was
married September 17, 1901 to James McNeel Kerr. she died February 2,
1922 of pneumonia contracted as a complication of injuries received in an
automobile accident. Brown Buren Beard was born at Winterburn June 26,
1883. he had hazel eyes, stood six-foot one-inch tall and weighted 160
to 180 pounds. he was married September 27, 1905, near Green Bank to
Nellie Blanche Gum, who was born near Green Bank February 3, 1884. he
died of heart trouble on Easter Sunday April 6, 1969, and his wife died at
Marlinton March 27, 1978. Brown and Blanche had two children, Virginia
Raine born November 29, 1906 , east of Traveler's Repose, died of spinal
meningitis July 31, 1907. Jessie Brown was born May 6, 1915, at
Bartow. She was married November 29, 1941 to William Willard Powell,
and they have three children; Susan Elizabeth, Jane Beard, and Ann Brown.
Brown Buren Beard served as Pocahontas County Deputy Assessor for Green Bank
District from 1916 until 1920, and as Sheriff from 1920 until 1924. he
became a member of the County Court... |